has appeared better founded than the first. Scaliger, however, has termed him, “Poeta antiquus magnifico ingenio: Utinam hunc haberemus integrum, et amisissemus Lucanum, Statium, Silium Italicum, _et tous ces garcons la_(216).” Quintilian has happily enough compared the writings of Ennius to those sacred groves hallowed by their antiquity, and which we do not so much admire for their beauty, as revere with religious awe and dread(217). Hence, if we cannot allow Ennius to be crowned with the poetical laurel, we may at least grant the privilege conceded to him by Propertius— “Ennius hirsutâ cingat sua tempora quercu.” Politian, in his _Nutricia_, has recapitulated the events of the life of Ennius, and has given perhaps the most faithful summary of his character, both as a man and a poet— “Bella horrenda tonat Romanorumque triumphos, Inque vicem nexos per carmina degerit annos: Arte rudis, sed mente potens, parcissimus oris, Pauper opum, fidens animi, morumque probatus, Contentusque suo, nec bello ignarus et armis.” But whatever may have been the merits of the works of Ennius, of which we are now but incompetent judges, they were at least sufficiently various. Epic, dramatic, satiric, and didactic poetry, were all successively attempted by him; and we also learn that he exercised himself in lighter sorts of verse, as the epigram and acrostic(218). For this novelty and exuberance it is not difficult to account. The fountains of Greek literature, as yet untasted in Latium, were to him inexhaustible sources. He stood in very different circumstances from those Greek bards who had to rely solely on their own genius, or from his successors in Latin poetry, who wrote after the best productions of Greece had become familiar to the Romans. He was placed in a situation in which he could enjoy all the popularity and applause due to originality, without undergoing the labour of invention, and might rapidly run with success through every mode of the lyre, without possessing incredible diversity of genius.